May 11, 2012

China demonstrated fighter J16 to the press at aircraft factory Shenyang Aircraft Co; it is a copy of Russian Su-30MK2, reports Hong Kong military magazine Kanwa referring to a Chinese authoritative military source.

This airplane is a copy of Russian fighter Su-30MK2, the batch of them was sold to China early in 2000's, reports Interfax citing the source.

According to the magazine, Chinese Navy is quite satisfied with performance characteristics of Su-30MK2 fighter. The military asked the Shenyang
aircraft factory to copy that fighter with antiship capabilities
adapted for Chinese-made missiles. Basically, the fuselage remained the
same as J11BS airplane has, said the source.

The magazine reports that the first batch of 24 fighters J16 had been already constructed.

Since early 2010, Chinese Navy began to receive the first batch of domestically-designed multirole all-weather fighters J10A which significantly increased technological level of Chinese Navy, reports Kanwa.

The Chinese military source told to the magazine that "national air force has not received 'cloned' Su-30MK2 yet. Normally, Chinese Navy gets new fighters first. For example, two-seat fighter bomber JH7 joined Air Force only after commissioning into the Navy".

May 2, 2012

There are reports that a military training aircraft (believed to be PT6
aircraft) from Bangladesh has made an emergency landing at Salar in West
Bengal's Murshidabad district. The plane took off from an airbase
Jessore in Bangladesh.

The pilot Rashid has been found. The plane couldn't handle the strong winds and landed in a field. They also suspect that it might have run out of fuel. The two-seater Bangladesh Air Force plane has suffered minor damages.Earlier, in Dhaka, a senior police official had said that the pilot
apparently lost direction and entered the Indian skyline after it took
off from Jessore.